Time To Bring Car-Sharing Service To Downtown Hartford?

With the University of Connecticut moving its Greater Hartford campus to downtown Hartford, and with a handful of new residential developments on the drawing board, already challenging traffic and parking problems could get worse. One way to help alleviate this congestion would be car-sharing.

Business For Downtown Hartford, the downtown marketing and advocacy group, is conducting a short online survey to see if residents, workers and visitors are interested in having a Zipcar service downtown. Take the survey, which can be found at http://www.bfdh.org.

Founded in Cambridge, Mass, only 13 years ago, Zipcar said to be the world's largest membership-based car-sharing network. It is popular with business travelers, people who don't own cars but need them occasionally, students (Trinity College has a Zipcar service) and others. Zipcar also might be an option for city hall, a less expensive alternative to take-home cars, which many other financially struggling cities have done away with. We urge Mayor Pedro Segarra to take the survey, if he hasn't already.

If car-sharing allows residents not to own a first or second car, or not to bring a car downtown for a short business trip during the day, then it would be a good thing for downtown Hartford — as would more transit, bicycle paths and other transportation alternatives.

Zipcar, which was purchased earlier this year for $500 million by Avis Budget Group, announced in May that it had added service in Minneapolis, its 21st major metropolitan area, and was available at eight major airports.